STAR SPANGLED RHYTHM (1942) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its shoutout to the FORTIETH anniversary year of The Texas 27 Film Vault, one of the many Bad Movie Shows since the 1950s. The program debuted on Saturday February 9th, 1985. 

From cast interviews to research through very old newspapers to recollections from fans of the show, I’ve put together whatever information became available to me over the years.

Starring All Kinds of People Who Died Before Your Grandparents Were Born

MOVIE: Star Spangled Rhythm (1942)

ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Saturday July 6th, 1985 from 10:30pm to 1:00am. Broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma. Special thanks to my fellow T27FV fan Roberta for the date.

FILM VAULT LORE: With 2 1/2 hours to work with each week Randy and Richard, as machine-gun toting “Film Vault Technicians First Class (EO6)”, would usually present and mock episodes of old Republic serials, then still had time to follow that up with a bad or campy movie AND their comedy sketches.

Those sketches centered on their fictional Film Vault Corps, “the few, the proud, the sarcastic”, the men and women who “protected America’s schlock-culture heritage” in the form of the Golden Turkeys beloved by bad movie buffs. Such flicks were staples of late-night movie shows all over the country, hosted or not hosted.   

Star Spangled Rhythm was so long that, with commercials plus Randy and Richard’s comedy sketches, there was no time for a serial before the film for this episode of The Texas 27 Film Vault.

STAR SPANGLED RHYTHM was a quaint, schmaltzy, light-hearted morale booster for the United States, which at the time of its release had been involved in World War Two for less than a full year.

The movie’s soundtrack album! Send $4.95 if you want to buy it, $9.95 if you DON’T …

The plot sounds like a rejected script for I Love Lucy from several years later. A security guard at Paramount Studios has lied to his son (Eddie Bracken), who is serving in the Navy, that he is instead an executive with the studio. When the man’s son and Navy buddies show up at the studio on shore leave the security guard and a Paramount secretary (Betty Hutton) who wants to marry the guard’s son are on the spot.

Through some monumentally lame and labored lies and subterfuges the son and his service pals are convinced of Dad’s executive status while interacting with almost every star in the Paramount stable at the time.

Figures like Preston Sturges, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Fred MacMurray, Veronica Lake, Dorothy Lamour and countless other recognizable faces provide fodder for Randy and Richard, given the duo’s encyclopedic memories for movie and pop culture trivia. Bing Crosby’s son Gary shows up in the movie, too, so you can insert your own dark joke about Bing’s alleged abuse of Gary here.

Randy (right) and Richard way down on Level 31 hosting The Texas 27 Film Vault

Viewers will also see Susan Hayworth, Paulette Goddard, Franchot Tone, Ray Milland, Rochester, Dick Powell, William Bendix and Alan Ladd.

Though occasionally there are incidents of INTENTIONAL humor that will make you laugh most of the humor is unintentional. You’ll split your sides laughing at the telegraphed jokes, over-produced song and dance numbers plus the outdated social attitudes, especially regarding the African Americans in the cast.

And of course, for modern day viewers, we can’t help but smile at the ham-fisted, naive, hit-you-over-the-head nature of the whole affair. Everything climaxes with Bing Crosby singing Old Glory in front of a scale-model of Mount Rushmore. Star Spangled Rhythm is simple nostalgia from less cynical times.

Lots of songs for Randy, Richard and Tex (Ken Miller) to indulge in comical fake lyrics presented in mock Sing Along with Mitch style. As in “Follow the bouncing ball.” 

BACKGROUND: Randy Clower and Richard Malmos, both sons of military men, had come up with a very detailed back-story for their fictional Film Vault Corps. Back before the Corps members found themselves protecting old movies from gigantic rats, subterranean Drones and celluloid-eating cellumites the FVC got its start during the Great Depression.

FDR’s Works Progress Administration engineered the first Film Vaults beneath America’s major cities. Each subterranean vault was as large as an aircraft carrier and they were originally used to store the monumental film collection of FDR associate Larry Alexander Finley of Frankfort, KY.

Eventually the vaults were used to house the superannuated Golden Turkeys and camp classics that local television stations across the country filled their late-night hours with. The vaults also housed other bits of cultural kitsch like old commercials and tv shows and such.

IN THE NEAR FUTURE BALLADEER’S BLOG WILL PRESENT MORE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT MILESTONES. Be here to share the Film Vault Corp’s mission of “safeguarding America’s schlock-culture heritage”.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFO ON THIS SHOW – https://glitternight.com/texas-27-film-vault/

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.